


Cursed Child

by BeastOfTheSea



Series: Etrian Tales [1]
Category: Etrian Odyssey Series, 新・世界樹の迷宮 ミレニアムの少女 | Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl
Genre: (if you squint), Ableism, Angst, Autistic Character, Child Abuse, Gen, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 02:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4590354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastOfTheSea/pseuds/BeastOfTheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tlachtga: mysterious hexer, Ren's companion, Visil's servant. What was her life like before she came to Etria? </p>
<p>Here is one possible answer, if an unhappy one...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cursed Child

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to start writing out my headcanons for characters. Here's the first attempt. 
> 
> (Also, all negative language is not the author's opinion, but... intended to be from the point of view of superstitious or abusive adults.)

"Go! Go! We already have too many mouths to feed!"

"Don't waste your breath on the halfwit. She's never understood a word we have to say."

"Hurry up, brat! Leave and never return!"

"We've led her in far enough. She doesn't have the wit to find us again."

"Tch. You're probably right. Let's go, the other children need us..."

As the man and the woman walked through the trees, never looking back, the small girl raised her head and uttered the first words of her life:

_I'm... sorry._

* * *

No one liked the girl who stumbled into the village one day, her clothes torn by branches and her skin caked by dirt. Those who saw her grimaced at her silent stare, and avoided her subtly unnerving presence; worse yet, she did not even call after them, but tottered after disturbed villagers until they raised a hand to her or tossed her a scrap of food to make her go away. She seemed indifferent to threats and any shouting short of violence - though whether because she did not understand or because she was already accustomed to such, none could tell.

She spoke not a word, and hardly seemed aware of other human beings; while other children laughed and played with friends, and cried if they were left out, she calmly drew meaningless patterns in the dust and lined up rocks with subtlety and care understood only by her. Neither adults nor children could make heads nor tails of it. Soon, the rumor spread that she was a changeling-child, or cursed - the wildest rumors even held that she was a ghost, though this was easily disproven by going up to her and poking her. She did nothing to deny any of it; she seemed content to barely subsist on the outskirts of the village, never speaking, and drift through day after day of an isolated life.

The rumors, bizarre though they were, did draw one curious soul towards her, and that changed her life.

* * *

"Well, well. What have we here?" The old woman chuckled as she came to stand over the girl. "So you're the one they're all talking about, eh?" 

The girl did not respond to her words, but took notice when her shadow fell across the doodle on which the girl had been working. Looking up and fixing a blank, yet subtly disgruntled, stare upon the crone, the girl shuffled on her knees to a new, unshaded spot and turned to her new canvas of dust, beginning to dig out patterns in the ground again. "Heh... such concentration will serve you well," the old woman commented, smiling crookedly. "An ability to block out the world is essential to my arts."

The girl still did not respond, fixated on her own project. "Ha... well, they weren't exaggerating." With a shrug, the crone reached into a makeshift pocket of her cloak and withdrew her secret weapon. A ragged, free-floating strip of cloth took it from her bound hand, swung through the air, and dangled it before the child's pale face.

The girl at last raised her head, her wide, seemingly-vacant golden eyes fixing on the stuffed bunny dangling before her. "Yes. You like this, don't you?" Saying nothing, the girl instead responded by reaching for the toy; the cloth tendril did not yank it away, but instead pulled it away just quickly enough to keep it out of her reach. As it raised the bunny higher, the girl stood and began to walk, though she took care not to step on her aimless designs. The old woman grinned.

"And to think, those foolish villagers couldn't communicate with you... They know nothing about speaking to children in their own language..." Chuckling to herself, she floated slowly away, baiting the girl forward with the doll all the while. "Come along now, child... I've been without an apprentice for too long."

* * *

 

Her name was Tlatchtga, "Bloody-Hair". She had one before, but it had been unused for so long that she had forgotten it. This was the name her mentor had given her, so it was more important.

Her story, in words, began with her mentor. Before that, it had been in pictures - with a few sounds, but mostly noise. But her mentor taught her the important words, the Words of Power, and so she had to learn the rest as well. People were much like the spirits. You needed to say things to them to make them do things. Once she understood this, she started making an effort to speak, but only what needed to be said. Most people talked and talked and talked, and said obvious things or things that weren't important, and that tired her and made her head hurt. Words were difficult, and people insisted upon so many of them. They were very strange. She preferred the spirits.

The spirits had their difficulties, too. To gain freedom from limbs, they had to be bound. To gain inner power, outer power had to be relinquished. To ail foes, one first had to ail oneself. She did not mind so much. She already knew what it was to be sick, tired, and afraid, though she had not shown it as obviously as others might have. She did not mind the shackles that bound her legs, nor the chains that bound her arms - to her, they felt oddly like a hug. She had never had outer power to lose, and she took readily to the deep contemplation and focus needed to master the power within. Her mentor schooled her harshly, but spoke approvingly; she told Tlatchtga that she was a "natural", and said it justified her long wait to have picked at last such a promising student. 

She did not understand the feeling those words gave her; it reminded her of her parents, very far back in the early days, before she had understood that they were angry at her all the time and did not want her. Those thoughts hurt very much, so she hugged her bunny, with all its funny features and the circular, many-toothed mouth that made it so interesting (no bunny she had ever seen had a mouth like that, and that made it special), until the hurt went away. She did not understand why the pain was so bad. She thought perhaps her mentor was testing a new hex on her. That was fine, because her mentor only used hexes on her so that she might learn them and become stronger. She accepted the pain, then; she just wished it didn't hurt so much.

She grew strong indeed under her mentor's instruction; soon, she could regularly disable the creatures of the nearby forest, and slept peacefully where seasoned hunters would not tread. The feeling was pleasant: her studies held her interest, they were useful, and they brought her mentor's approval. This was "happiness", or perhaps "contentment". Possibly both.

But it did not last.

* * *

"M... Ma'am?"

"I knew this time would come," the crone muttered, peering out the door of her hut into the darkness. The unyielding, unmerciful light of torches drew closer. "The sins of youth return for revenge... Ah, well." She sighed. "I can't say I have any regrets. I lived like a lioness in my day. Now it only remains for me to ensure that I die like one as well, and not like a dog."

The girl was silent; though her expression, scarcely illuminated by moonlight, would have seemed blank to an ignorant observer, the ancient hexer read the subtle tells that made it "uncomprehending". "This is my end," she said, giving the girl a short shove; she stumbled back, out of even the moon's sight. "I'll stand and fight. You go. You're a child. You have your whole life ahead of you - your own bridges to burn. Flee, so others don't burn them for you."

"I'll... fight with you."

The crone gave an exasperated sigh. Of all the times to be noble. "No. They have me outnumbered at least five to one." She knew enough of tactics to know some might be hunting in the darkness, hoping that she would be too distracted to detect them. She wasn't that senile yet... and now she never would be. "Five to two's still too far from the right odds. _Go._ " She took a deep breath. "I _order_ you."

She felt, rather than saw, the agreement, and knew without needing to look or listen when the girl departed the hut. Despite herself, she breathed out deeply in relief - then sucked it back in, of course, every breath was precious now. But she was glad the girl would get away. She'd grown attached to the child, eccentricities and all. And she was a _natural_ talent. She was proud to have picked her and thus attached her aged name to that child's record, for it was a record that, she was certain, would go very far...

" _Black Witch of the Woods!_ " the shout rang out, and she instinctively cursed the brazen fool for interrupting her. She thought that, perhaps, the cry that followed was a bit raspier and weaker. "Come out! We have you surrounded! Put up no fight, and this will be quick!"

A strange calm settling over her, she straightened her aged back and squared her shoulders as best she could within her bonds, then floated out to survey her executioners. Yes, five - at least. She sensed a creeping figure within a nearby bush and smiled wryly. _Cheats._ With nothing better to do, she swept her gaze over the visible assailants, all salt and vinegar and gold-bought courage, and chuckled.

"It will indeed be quick," she said with cool bravado that she had, in its honest form, left behind in her long-spent and ill-spent youth, "for you."

The battle began.

* * *

Alone, aimless, and adrift, the red-headed girl went wherever the spirits sent her. Mindless and chattering, they pointed first one way and then another; their advice, however, did not have a totally random character. All roads, to them, led to a single town, a place of modern myth and legend - and as the adventurers flocked there, obsessed by a labyrinth and the treasures that some said lay within, the spirits spun inwards towards there as well, drawn by the great forest and disjointed rumors of some great secret that lay within, beyond what any man or even spirit could hope to reach. They said the origin of all spirits lay within there, some whispered. They said that the heart of the Labyrinth contained God. 

The girl did not particularly heed any of those things; she went there because it was no worse than to go anyplace else. She lacked purpose. She lacked interest. She lacked, though she did not know it mattered, human contact and warmth and some mutual pleasure to life.

It made as much sense as anything else to think, perhaps, that the Labyrinth might hold something within it to fill the hole in her heart. And that was to say: it made no sense at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize if Tlatchtga's behavior seems exaggerated, but the extent of her initial unawareness is meant to stem from early neglect/abuse. (No reason to bother even attempting interaction if it only brings pain.) As for the rest - nonverbal tendencies, flat affect, and poor ability to describe emotion are possible traits, though I don't know if I depicted them correctly. 
> 
> At any rate - poor girl. Things will get better for her when she goes to Etria... eventually...


End file.
